About two months ago, Porter asked me to reserve a weekend for her so that she could plan a surprise for me. Turns out that the surprise was a weekend get-away to her family’s cabin. I have been there a few times, but there are generally so many people there that people are sleeping on the floor and we are trying to squeeze as many people around the table for dinner as possible. This time, it was just me and her AND the big A. The big A was a surprise. A super pleasant surprise. Here are some pictures from the trip:

The crabs in the bucket!

Our crab dinner. It was a huge feast where we ate for at least two hours and had to stop ourselves from finishing all of the crab. We also had salad, which was delicious, but paled in comparison the crab.

The next morning, I made a crab scramble with crab, cheese and garlic butter as well as crab pancakes (they were supposed to be crab cakes, but I didn’t have any of the ingredients to make crab cakes, so they ended up like pancakes…). It was such a delicious weekend, filled with cuddling, reading, crochetting, crabbing and baths. I can’t wait to do it again… soon!

I started blogging when I started Body for Life last year. I want to review what has happened in my “weight conscious” world. What started me on BFL were two things:

1. A book called “A Very Hungry Girl: How I Filled Up on Life and How You Can, Too” and
2. therapy, because I read the book, “A Very Hungry Girl”.

My therapist suggested that I try to find a regime that had a following so that I would be able to reap the benefits of a support group. I completed one challenge, but half-assed. I could do the working out. In fact, I love lifting weights. It takes a lot of effort to get myself into cardio, and that area was quite lacking during the workout portion of the program. I also had a terribly hard time eating 6 times a day. It just isn’t for me. And so I learned a lot about myself while trying to do the challenge.

Before all of the book reading and therapy, I had been diagnosed with PCOS, which I gather (based on what my doctors tell me) is when there is something wrong with your hormonal balance, but they have tested just about everything and can’t figure it out. In fact, cysts are not even a prerequisit for poly-cystic ovarian syndrom. Imagine that. But it is one way to explain why I can consume 1,000 less (consistently) than what my body requires to maintain it’s weight and not see a change in my weight, shape, or general health.

So recently, I have decided to get back “on the wagon” of sorts. I think it is because I can see Yogagirl having killer days at the gym and still find time to write about it. I see Skwigg’s batman back. I mean, come on! I can do this, right?

So I have started. But I am doing it a little differently. I am just going to start breaking it up into steps. So my first step was to increase the amount of cardio I do per week. I now do two focused 20 minute workouts and 2 intensity-fluxuating 1.5 hour workouts a week. I lift weights at least once, but sometimes twice a week. And now I have started cutting as much sugar out of my diet as possible, which is hard because I am addicted to chocolate and Winemonkey likes dessert with almost every dinner when he and I eat together. My next step is to start going to the gym a little more often and lifting weights twice a week regularly instead of occassionally. If I don’t see a weight loss/muscle gain in the next few weeks, I will need some advice on how to change my approach.

Thank you fitness bloggers for helping keep me inspired!

You know, sometimes it is good to spend the day having the most ridiculous conversation by email. This is what Porter and I talked about ALL day yesterday:

Porter: My goodies don’t like staying the jar.
Me: Haha… I know your plight young grasshopper. Goodies are not meant for a jar. If they should stay in the jar, there should be no way to open the jar.
Porter: Or at least one of those tamper proof tops that you can never get open, even though they say they are just to keep kids away. I hate those tops, but my goodies need one.
Me: If your goodies weren’t good enough to come out, we wouldn’t call them “goodies”… they would be “baddies” and really – who wants baddies?.
Porter: I know some people with baddies and yeah, no one wants them.<
Me: Well other people with baddies probably want baddies, because lord knows they aren’t getting any goodies. Is this conversation any less ridiculous than getting pot roast in the eye? =)
(Porter’s fiance emailed us to tell us that he had pot roast for lunch. A potato squirted juice into his eye and his eye was itchy… but that is a more ridiculous conversation for another day.)
Porter: It is a little less ridiculous. A little.
Me: Right. But if our goodies got in someone’s eye and then the said eye was itchy… now that would be totally ridiculous. Or just plain gross… I mean goodies in the eye? And it caused an itchy response? I think that if your goodiesin someone’s eye causes an itchy response we should worry more about getting your goodies and the eye to the doctor and not so much about how ridiculous it is.Itchygoodies = BADDIES
Porter: yeah. very bad.

I decided on Monday that I have been sick since Thanksgiving and that I had to do something about it. So I went to the doctor’s yesterday in order to determine if my misbehaving mucous was because of allergies or a sinus infection. After 10 minutes of asking me the color and consistency… the doctor decided that it probably wasn’t allergies. So now I am on the Z-pack antibiotics (which inevitably give me yeast infections, but on the bright side, they are the only antibiotics I remember to take at the right time for the right amount of days) and Flonase. Now I have spent my whole life trying not to inhale things up my nose. The list of things includes, but is not limited to, water, salt, pepper, toothpaste, and insects. Using Flonase goes against all of my basic instincts. And when the doctor described how to use it and the phrase “if you get nose bleeds, don’t worry about it, just keep using it.” No THANK YOU. I tried it yesterday and though this morning I woke up with less congestion and snot, I had a mild headache (unusual). I might just use it every other day, but we will see how things work out. She also felt my throat and lymph nodes and asked if I had ever had my thyroid tested. I have almost all of the symptoms of an underactive thyroid, so I got the blood work drawn for that test and I will find out the results next week.

Last night Winemonkey and I went to the Cork Company Soiree. It was a really good time. His friend, one of the co-owners, is very charismatic. And we sat with an interesting group of people. Two of them were from the East Coast and so we had great conversation.

All and all, these next few days are going to continue to be very busy. I am going away for the weekend to the cabin with Porter. I am under the impression that it is just us two, which would be super fantastically nice.

Alright. I gotta get writing… But I am sure I will write more later.

Flonase has changed the entire dynamic of my sinus infliction that I had grown so used to. I swear to you that today I heard squeaking in my ear when I blew my nose. It was so loud in my ear, I had to ask my officemate if he could hear it, but it stopped making the noise when I tried to demonstrate it for him.

Today has been a good day. Last night the big A read fairytales to me. It was super nice.

Today during the Meeting of Doom, I realized that I am making progress. Not tons of progress, but I really think that I will be able to get finished by September and man – oh – man that would be such a beautiful thing.

Tonight Winemonkey is coming in and we are going to mingle with a bunch of wine industry people. His friend who owns a cork company invited us to his soiree before the conference tomorrow. Maybe I will also get to network. Look out enology labs… here I come!